


Bureaucratic Error

by XmagicalX (Xparrot)



Category: Highlander: The Series, The Sentinel
Genre: Afterlife, Bureaucracy, Crossover, Episode Tag, Episode: s04e01 Sentinel Too, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-05-21
Updated: 1998-05-21
Packaged: 2017-10-09 06:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/83909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/XmagicalX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Sentinel Too followup.</i> An angel's work is never done...especially around the time of those pesky season finales!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bureaucratic Error

**Author's Note:**

> All right. Laura, you took the challenge right out of my electronic mouth—I actually had an e-mail written up with an almost identical proposal ;) Of course I had to get on it right away...This is my second one already; my sister and I couldn't get to sleep last night until we penned a "solution", I'll post that one when she gets back from school.
> 
> This is a silly bit of fluff. It's also a small cross-over; I'm dealing with the loss of two favorite shows, The Sentinel (okay, it's not over yet, we hope...but it's on the edge, especially if they make this disaster permanent) and Highlander. Sort of spoilers for the finale of HL, too. Don't worry, though, you don't need to know the show to get this.
> 
> XmagX  
> "This isn't over"

Blair whirled around, wondering how one told which way was up amidst the shadowless brilliance. Ah, that would help. A desk, an enormous gracefully curved front desk as one would find at a truly classy hotel. Except the hypothetical hotel's would be wood, not that odd, beautiful silver.

The woman behind the desk didn't look up from her computer screen. "Over there," she instructed him in a musical alto, gesturing vaguely with one slender hand.

He looked. "Over there?" Disbelievingly.

"Yes, into that tunnel."

"But—what's going on? Where am I?"

"They answer all your questions inside. I'm just the receptionist." Still not looking up. "Pete's only on-duty Sunday afternoons, if that's who you were expecting.—"

"I wasn't expecting anybody!" Blair assured her. "But, I can't go through that tunnel."

The woman finally looked up. Soft black eyes flicked from him to the tunnel entrance, then widened. "Ah. I see."

"You see. Good." Progress of sorts. "Now what do I do?"

She seemed at a loss. "I don't know, I'm new at this, haven't seen this before." Together they eyed the large gray wolf sprawled in front of the entrance. Its pink tongue lolled out between its canines, and intelligent golden eyes met theirs calmly.

Experimentally Blair took a step toward the tunnel. The wolf's head raised and an unmistakable warning growl issued from its ruffed throat. Blair hastily took back the step. He glanced to the receptionist, who seemed to be making a deliberate effort not to look at him as she picked up a white telephone and dialed. Soon enough she slammed it down, muttering, "Damned demons, switchboard's always busy."

"So now what?" He didn't want to be stuck here forever, particularly not without his own celphone, which he had checked for and found missing. Jim must be getting worried- -

That was an odd thought; why would Jim be worried? He hadn't been here very long...had he? How had he gotten here? Sudden flash of memories, Alex, Jim standing freezing in the empty loft, Jim talking about trust, Alex saying something about regret, a gun...

Oh God. He couldn't be. No wonder Jim would be worried...

"Is there a problem here?" a voice called.

Blair looked up. Someone was coming from the direction he thought—suspected he himself had arrived from. Average looking middle-aged blond man, vaguely familiar perhaps. Wearing a dark coat and slacks and proceeding in their direction. "I say, you're looking rather boggled, what's up?"

"That, sir." The receptionist pointed at the wolf.

The man blinked at it. "Oh, I see. I take it, dear boy, that you're expected to walk through the tunnel past that carnivorous creature?"

Blair nodded. "Apparently."

"Well, we'll have to see about this." The man shrugged and headed toward the animal. As he approached the wolf rose to its not inconsiderable four-footed height. It must weigh a good two hundred pounds, Blair estimated, and all of it muscle mass. Or teeth.

The newcomer did not appear especially wary of its bulk or its fangs. When the wolf snarled, his eyebrows went up, but that was all. Then in one swift motion he drew his sword.

A real sword, not an avenger's spear or some symbolic play-toy. This was a good four feet of glittering well-polished steel, which the man held with the ease of experience. "Go on, now, shoo, let him by," he informed the wolf, wiggling the blade at it.

The canine growled again, and then barked, though Blair thought he had read that wolves didn't bark. The man rocked back on his heels, resting on his sword like a cane. "Oh my," he remarked, as if answering. "All right, I'll see what I can do." The sword disappeared back to wherever it had emerged from, and the man came back to them.

"There's a glitch," he announced.

"And you're here to fix it?" Blair inquired hopefully.

"Actually I'm just coming back from an assignment," he was told. "But I'll see if I can be of service here. My dear lady, if you would allow me..." He slipped behind the desk. Obediently the receptionist stepped aside and let him at the computer.

He typed hurriedly, frowned at the results, tried typing something else. The computer beeped loudly twice then squealed, and he jumped back as if he'd been burned. "Infernal machines, never could figure them out," he muttered. Then turned to the woman. "Would it be at all possible for you to apply those lovely fingers to this keyboard?"

The receptionist looked worried. "I'm not supposed to be accessing subject files from here."

"But you do know how, while I remain ignorant." He took the aforementioned lovely fingers in his own hands. "I would be eternally grateful, as I'm sure this young man here would be as well. I'm not asking you to sin, just to move around the rules. As a favor." He gazed at her with earnest blue eyes.

Blair, who had been known to bat his own baby blues if the need arose, admired the man's technique. The woman sighed, then bent over the computer. The man smiled at her gratefully, "I thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Truly your spirit is beautiful through and through—"

"Excuse me." Blair felt almost guilty at interrupting the other's play. The man looked up straight away, though, not appearing angry. "Are you—" Well, that was a ridiculous question. But he didn't look anything like Gabriel, so... "You're not Michael, are you?"

"No, oh no," chuckled the man. "Hugh, Hugh Fitzcairn. Pleased to meet you, Mr.—"

"Sandburg." Blair shook the offered hand with a smile. "Blair Sandburg. Listen, Hugh—"

"Fitz, dear boy, my friends call me Fitz. Unless of course you prefer Hugh—" The last was directed not at Blair but at the receptionist, who didn't hear it, focused as she was on the computer screen. Fitz sighed. "Much as I admire a dedicated woman..."

"Fitz," asked Blair, "how long is this going to take? Not to be rude, but..."

"You have other engagements?" Fitz winked at him. "No worries, this is a mere error, we'll rectify it. Shouldn't be too long, once we find the problem."

"How long?" Blair pressed. "I don't mean to be rude, but, well..." Didn't want to keep Jim in suspense for too long. He suspected it wasn't good for his heart.

"Are you married? A wife waiting for you, perhaps?" Fitz guessed.

Blair shook his head. "No, couple of girlfriends, maybe, but it's a friend of mine I'm worried about. He—" This sounded so hokey, so trite. "We're close. He gets upset if stuff happens to me, I mean, same thing for me if something happens to him, we're...I just don't want to worry him." A laughable excuse to want to get this over with. For all that it was the true one.

But Fitz was nodding understandingly. "I have a friend or two myself," he said. "Was just visiting him, actually. Sure they can get by without you, but do you or they want to—"

The computer chittered and the receptionist leaned back. "Got it," she announced. Fitz bent over her shoulder, glanced down once and then concentrated on the screen.

"Ah, I see, I—oh my. This was a rather major faux pas, wasn't it." He looked up past Blair to the wolf, calling to the animal "Thank you so very much!" Shaking his head, "Oh dear, if this had passed...not to worry, my boy, we'll put this right right away."

"What?" Blair's curiosity got the best of him. Excitedly he watched Fitz type away at the keyboard. "What's going on?"

"I'm sending an electronic memo, they'll take care of this the moment they get it," Fitz explained, whether to Blair or to the receptionist or to the wolf was unclear. "Any moment now—" The computer clicked. "Ah, you must appreciate computers' speed, though. Even if they do mess around with dates. Who mis-entered the century, I wonder? They aren't going to be happy..." Striding out from behind the desk he headed away from the tunnel. Turned and gestured. "Good- bye, dear lady, I'll be with you shortly. Now come along, my boy, we've got to get you back."

Blair hurried after him. "What'd you find out?"

"You didn't mention who your friend was," Fitz said, sounding slightly accusing. "Of course I should have recognized you, but I was still wrapped up with that whole affair with MacLeod—really, if you had just said you were a Guide you'd be back by now."

"A Guide—you know about that?"

"Of course I do. Sentinels, Guides, they aren't commonplace enough to forget, and we keep close watch on all of our best." Fitz rolled his eyes. "This is all our fault, of course. Don't know what it is about now, it seems that more mistakes happen in May than any other month of the year. Springtime distracts everybody I suppose. That whole mess with Richie last year, and Mac now. Not to mention that poor FBI agent. Then there was the fiasco with that detective, what was it, Nicholas something, that took some fixing, let me tell you. And now you here—what are we coming to?" He sighed and stopped walking. "Well, I suppose if we put it right again..."

Halting in the middle of bright white emptiness, Blair realized they had lost sight of the desk and receptionist. Hazy grayer shapes seemed to be trying to take form around him. "Go on," Fitz told him. "Get back where you belong. That is..." He hesitated. "If you want to go back," he said at last.

"What?"

"Our error, your choice. I fixed the technicalities but if you want you can stay here...I can't guarantee the wolf will be happy, but it's your decision."

"To stay here or go back?" As if that was a tricky decision to make. "I have a lot of unfinished business, Fitz." Not to mention a partner who was probably a tad anxious by now.

Fitz beamed. "Thought you'd say something like that, just had to ask. Unions rules and such. Just look up."

"What?"

"Look up, it's not that hard."

"Okay." Doubtfully Blair tilted his head back, looked up at the uniform light...

And he was squinting at the piercing glare of the sun, a sharp stabbing pain in his side, lungs choking on the air they demanded. He coughed, winced at the agony, half- wondering if he wouldn't have been better off returning with Fitz and facing off with that wolf.

Then Jim's square profile blocked the sunlight, his shadowed eyes wide, mouth literally hanging open. "Blair?" Strong hands grasped his shoulders. "My God, Blair?"

Pain or no pain, it was worth coming back to hear his voice, and somewhere he knew that Fitz was grinning almost as widely as himself. Not as hugely as Jim was now. But close enough, with all the deserved satisfaction of righting an obvious error.


End file.
